Opec which will mobilize 500 million in private capital to invest in projects that empower women in latin american. This initiative will break down barriers for women this the economy and eaffirms the Trump Administration he is commitment to empowering women in latin make and around the globe. As you all saw yesterdays confirmation hearing for mike pompeo as secretary of state went very well. From his years in the army to his time in the House Intelligence Committee to a tenure as cia director. The secretary has excelled as one of the nations key leaders in Foreign Policy and security. As a result of mike pompeos leadership, america has been safer, more secure and more prosperous. There is no reason why secretary pompeos confirmation process should not be done in a speedy and bipartisan manner. Even the Washington PostEditorial Board hardly cheerleader for this administration published an editorial yesterday with a simple straight to the point headline, confirm mike pompeo. Democrats and republicans should do exactly that by coming together and doing what is without question the right thing for our country. With that i will take your questions. The president came out swinging today, calling james comey liar, a leaker action slime ball. Is he worried about what hes take . Not at all. The American People see right through the blatant lies avs self admitted leaker. There is nothing more than a pr stunt by comey to rehabilitate his at thorred reputation and enrich his bank account by peddling a book that belongs in the bargain bin of the fixing section instead of being remembered as a dedicated servant in the pursuit of justice. Like many of his other colleagues a of the the fbi. Comey will be forever i dont know as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his trust with the president of the United States. The dedicated agents of the fib, and the American People he vowed to faithfully serve. One of the president s greatest achievements will go down as firing james comey. The Deputy Attorney was here yesterday. Is the president going to fire Rod Rosenstein . I dont have any announcements at this time. The president has voiced some frustrations. Beyond that i dont have anything to add. Sarah, the president a short time ago issued a pardon to Scooter Libby the former Vice President s chief of staff. There are many people who believe Scooter Libby was the victim of a special counsel investigation run amuck. The recent statements we have heard from the white house would seem to indicate that you feel much the same thing about the Mueller Investigation. Was the president sending some sort of signal to the Mueller Investigation or about the Mueller Investigation by pardoning Scooter Libby . Not at all. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Every case should be reviewed on their own merits. Part par donning libby was the right thing to do after the principal witness recanted her testimony. The d. C. Court of Appeals Panel unanimously voted to restore mr. Libbys bar membership after being presented evidence in support of his version of the events and that key witness changed her recollection of the events in question. In the pardoning statement the president acknowledges he doesnt know Scooter Libby. What was it that convinced him that he deserved a pardon . The president thought it was the right thing to do. Justin. Thanks sarah. The president began the week saying he expected a decision snooshs speak up a little. Sure. The president began the week saying he expected a decision within 24 to 48 hours on syria. On tuesday he said a decision would probably come that night. Here we are on friday. And in a Statement Last night he said that no final decision had been reached. Im wondering if you could walk through why the president hasnt met his own time line there. And specifically, if it had anything to do with the sort of syrian Troop Movement that we saw after wednesday threaten missile strike. No. We are continuing to have ongoing conversations with our partners and allies. The president spoke with president macron of france again earlier today. We are continuing to have ongoing meetings and conversations here at the white house. When we have any further developments we will let you know. Because it is a friday, im wondering friday the 13th. Yeah. Walk us through exactly. You grumble like thats a bad thing. Committed to senator gardner in terms of both what the Justice Department would do and what the white house would do in terms of supporting legislation on states to legalize marijuana . He affirmed the president did speak with senator gardner yesterday and again today. We are always Consulting Congress about issues including states rights of which the president is a Firm Believer and the statement that the senator put out earlier today is accurate. Steve. You mentioned he spoke to president macron. How big a coalition does he have for this expected action in syria . I cant talk about anything that may or may not happen. But i can tell that you the president and a number of individuals within his administration have spoken to a number of our partners and allies at various levels across the world. Is he satisfied now that syria was responsible for the chem kell weapons attack . Yes, we are again confident that both syria had responsibility in this chemical weapons attack. But we also hold russia responsible for their failure to stop chemical weapons attacks from taking place. Josh. It was reported today that Michael Cohen the president s personal attorney helped negotiate a 1. 6 million settlement to a playboy playmate. Itths also emerged today that Michael Cohen is under investigation by new york. Is the president still associated with Michael Cohen . Does he continue to consider Michael Cohen someone he hold in confidence . I know in a the pre has worked with him as a personal attorney. Beyond that i dont have anything else to add. Would the president like to say anything about him. The president has been clear he has a deep concern about the direction the special counsel has taken. The investigation started about russian collusion, of which there was one. He spoke at length on this and i would roofer you back to those action. Jill. Is cohen still the president s personal attorney . Im not sure jill, i would have to check. Did paul ryan just endorse Kevin Mccarthy as speaker in an interview with meet the press . The president has a great relationship with Kevin Mccarthy but in terms of an announcement who he wants to see as the next speaker i dont have any announcements on that front. The james comey book excerpts came out today. He writes about the president in very personal terms. Were you surprised by that . Was the president surprised by that. I dont think we are surprised by the tact that james comey continues to spread false information. The guy is known to be a liar and a leaker. So theres not a lot about james comey that we would find to be very surprising. Really quickly on the pardon that came out today, the president so far has issued three president ial pardons, one of those to joe arpaio. Is there a commonality in what the president looks for as he pardons individual . Again, every case should be reviewed on their own merits. Thats what the president has done. Im wondering if the administration reacted with any message to moscow after officials there today said that the chemical attack in douma was faked and staged with britains direct involvement . Certainly, our intelligence tells us otherwise. I cant go beyond that. Again, we have a very high confidence that syria was responsible. And once again, russias failure to stop them and their continued disaction on this front has been part of the problem. April. Sarah, what part does the president bring russia into the syria equation now as cause for the delay in the strike time line . Again, we are continuing to have ongoing conversations with partners and allies, assess the information and once a decision is made we will let you know. Dave. Thanks sarah. The Justice DepartmentInspector General came out with his long awaited report this afternoon on former fbi Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe saying he improperly leaked information about the Clinton Foundation investigation into a reporter and then lied to james comey about it and under oath to two fbi investigators. Do you have a reaction to that . And does that in your mind validate the decision to fire mccabe . I havent seen the full report, but sounds like two peas if a pod with mccabe and comey. Mccabe was fired in disgrace for misconduct and lying about it. Beyond that i dont have anything about it at this point. Francesca. Thank you sarah. You said that james comey was a liar, that hes a leaker, that he made false representations or claims. Other than what the president tweeted this morning about lying under oath to senator grassley, what exactly has he said thats false or a lie . Comey claimed reopening the investigation what he did was base on merit. Now he says it was based on poll numbers. Comey claimed he was told to stop investigating flynn after he previously testified that no one told him to stop investigations. The moodia has determined officials that comey leaked four memos with classified information. I think it is clear that comey has a credibility problem. The other thing thats clear, its just one of the few issues in washington that both democrats and republicans agree on. He has been criticized by the Legal Community for leaking sensitive information. And organizations promoting Good Government found comeys leaking grounds for firing. Multiple democrats including some of the biggest leaders in the Democrat Party have also attacked comey. Minority leader pelosi said comey was maybe not in the right job. Senator schumer was appalled by what comey did and did not have confidence in him any longer. Senator Bernie Sanders said comey acted in an outrageous way. Cain said comey is responsible for the lowest moment in the history of the fbi. Maxine waters said comey has no credibility. The fbi should be independent and not led by a political hack. Comeys higher loyalty is pretty clear that its only to himself. If the you can get this group of people and others like mark meadows and a number of others to agree on something i think that you have to be right. Jim. What about the dasier . Did he also lie about the dossier in his conversation with President Trump about that . The dossier is false Opposition Research that was funded by the Clinton Campaign to attack the president. It was used illegally to justify spying on americans. I think thats quite the problem. Jim . Sarah the content of the president s attacks on jim comey here your attacks on jim comey, isnt all of that a bit unbecoming the presidency of this white house to go after him in such a personal way like that . Kulg him a slime ball and a liar and a leaker . Ic its unbecoming for the person that is supposed to be the top Law Enforcement officials in the United States, the person that is supposed to protect the people this country to lie and leak classified information. Certainly to falsify documents. I think thats a very big problem. And somebody who has created this problem for himself, i didnt encourage jim comey to go out and do a pr campaign. Congress has asked jim comey to come and testify multiple times multiple times which he denied being able to do. Yet he sat down with George Stephanopoulos for five hours. If anybody created this problem its jim comey and he should be the one held responsibility. Right here. I want to keep going. I had two questions, if i could ask a second followup question. Because its friday. And you would be upset if i dont. You probably have seen this tweet. It was a tweet that you posted before the election in 2016 when you were attacking fbi agents because you are under criminal and you are losing. What do you make of that now . The rank and fbi are some of the greatest people in this country. We repeated that time and time again. And certainly have the full support of this administration. I think that we have been very clear though how we feel about some of the leadership at the fbi the, particularly james comey. When you go over comey and rosenstein and mueller, and you are losing. The theme to comeys book is the president s quote disdain for the rule of law and his continued efforts to publicly undermine federal Law Enforcement officials. How would you characterize the president s attitude toward the rule of law and the things he said publicly about the top Law Enforcement officials. The president has a lot of respect for the rule of law but not a lot of suspect for people whose sole job is to carry out the law and they leak classified information and they lie to the American Public about it. Its his own attorney general, Deputy Attorney general, special counsel, the fbi, the judge who is make decisions he doesnt like. Im sorry, what was the question. Those were the list of the federal Law Enforcement officials he undermined not just people who leaked information. The president haend hasnt undermined them in any capacity. Because he calls out things he finds problematic or concerning, he should be doing that. If the fbi is leaking out classified information the president should be calling them out on it. You guys spend hours and hours praising jim comey propping him up, giving him a big platform. We shouldnt praising him, we should be taking him down, taking him off of air instead of giving him minute after minute. We should talk about the economy, syria, the drug crisis. Instead we are going to talk about jim comey. You guys will cover it endlessly all day today, all day tomorrow and my guess is every day next week with little time given to the issues that the people care about. The president has every right to call out that individual that you guys are propping up and say there are problems and that we should be concerned about it. Charlie. Thank you sarah. This morning, james comey admitted that he didnt tell the president about the political im sorry. Can you speak up. This morning james comey said he didnt inform the president of the political source of the dasier. Was the president surprised to hear that . Did director comey ever tell him about the sourcing of the political dossier against him . Im not sure about that specific conversation but i know that its been documented many times over now that the dossier is false Opposition Research funded by the Clinton Campaign and used to attack the president. A second question because its friday. Did the president speak to former Vice President dick cheney about the Scooter Libby pardon either before or after . I am not aware of any conversations on that subject. Three republican state matters from missouri wrote the president yesterday saying that the embattled governor, Eric Greitens should resign. They said if it was a navy s. E. A. L. , they would salute and resign if his commander asked him to. Did the president respond. I dont have his response at this but that is concerning and something we are taking seriously. Ill keep you update as we have something. Concerning the summit with Prime Minister abe next week in florida does the president plan to push for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with japan . Im to the going to get ahead of the president s conversations with Prime Minister abe. But trade will certainly be something that is discussed, as well as the ongoing conversations around north korea. Sarah does the president have another meeting today on syria . Im sorry . Will the president be having another nsc meeting on syria. There is a meeting this afternoon at the deputies level. Ayesha. I wanted to ask about the pardoning process. It seems like we have had these three pardons. They all were somewhat highprofile or gotten media attention. How is the president deciding when to take action on a case, i mean with arpaio, he hadnt even been sentenced yet. The libby case was very old. How are you deciding when to take action on these cases . And can a normal person who feels like they have been unjustly convicted, can they get their case to the white house . I mean there is a Justice Department process, but it seems like the president is taking special interest in certain cases. Again, the president has exercised constitutional authority, and he determines when and how hes going to use that when it comes to the pardon process. He looks at each one individually and makes a decision. And we make that announcement. Nadia.